


Slam on the Brakes

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Ficlet, Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 07:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the 3-sentence AU meme. Prompt: Street racers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slam on the Brakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prettyminstrel](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=prettyminstrel).



They have history, the two of them, but they never talk about it.

“Now is all that matters,” Natasha tells him, but her refusal to engage with even the slightest allusion to their shared past is not a form of denial. He accused her of that once and she laughed in his face, right before she swung through the window of her modified Porsche and told him to kiss her taillights.

Clint wants her to talk about it. If she does, maybe he’ll understand her just a little. He’s never met a woman like her before. He doesn’t think he’ll ever meet another woman like her. Natasha broke the mould just as she keeps on breaking the speed limit and breaking hearts—including his.

“The past doesn’t own me,” she says. She’s giving him a ride; a master class is what she calls it, an exhibition of skill at the wheel. His driving style is the exact opposite of hers. He thinks about where to place the car on the road. She feels it.

“But the past shapes you.” Clint grabs for the roll bar and she laughs, calls him a pussy. He grits his teeth as she steps on the accelerator and swerves, right-left-right around the traffic heading into a tunnel. “It’s made you who you are today.”

“You want to claim some part of me, is that it?” She takes her gaze from the road and looks straight at him. She doesn’t slow down. “You want me to acknowledge that somehow, you’re responsible for me?”

“I am.” He forces himself to stare at the road ahead, the end of the tunnel an onrush of light. “I want to be.”

Natasha snorts. “Isn’t that romantic.”

She slams on the brakes, both of them. The air is split with the squealing of metal on rubber; an acrid, burning stench surrounds them. The Porsche slews around, clips the kerb, and launches itself sideways.

Clint yells. His first instinct is to protect himself. His second instinct is to protect her.

The car rolls once, twice. Natasha laughs the whole way through it.

When they finally come to a stop, the battered Porsche landing the right way up, Natasha stabs the inflated airbag, unclips her seatbelt, and pulls herself out of the window. She shakes out her hair, as casual and easy as if she’s just gone shopping, then struts around to the passenger side and leans in.

“I’m responsible for myself,” she says. “And I don’t need romance.”

She jabs her pocketknife into his airbag. It deflates slowly as she walks away.


End file.
